Topics

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Obama has INCREASED Border Patrol and Deportation of Illegal Immigrants

Another caricature of the president that is true only in right wing land. Again, we can have different opinion and debate about what our national policy on immigration should be, but not on what the policy as of now actually is. Here is President Obama's first term record on immigration.

From ABC News:

1.6 million: The record number of deportations under Obama during his first four years in office. On average, Obama deported 32,886 per month,
according to an August article by Polifact. That rate is much higher
than that of his predecessors: George W. Bush deported a monthly average
of 20,964 and Clinton deported 9,059.
154,404: The number of DREAMers who have received deferred action under the Obama program officially started in August. The program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), won accolades from immigrant rights activists, even while they criticized him for the climbing levels of deportations.
"It's the first time in decades that there's actually an affirmative
benefit that you can apply for," Chung-Wha Hong, the executive director
of the New York Immigration Coalition, told ABC/Univision in September.
"Both in the impact of the benefit and the scale of application,
deferred action is really one of the most positive developments of the
last decade, that, otherwise, was really categorized by heavy
enforcement."
$18 billion: The amount of money that the federal government spent on immigration enforcement in
the 2012 fiscal year. That significantly outweighs the combined
spending for all other major criminal federal law enforcement in the
U.S., including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Secret
Service, U.S. Marshals Service, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). [ABC News 1/21/13]

PolitiFact: "[Border Patrol] Manpower Has Roughly Doubled Since 2004, As Obama Said In His Speech At El Paso."
PolitiFact rated as "true" Obama's statement that "[t]he Border Patrol
has 20,000 agents -- more than twice as many as there were in 2004."
[PolitiFact, 5/10/11]

Obama Signed $600 Million Border Security Bill For More Border Patrol Agents And Customs Inspectors.
On August 13, 2010, Obama signed a $600 million border security bill to
"fund some 1,500 new border patrol agents, customs inspectors and other
law enforcement officials along the border, as well as two more
unmanned aerial 'drones' to monitor border activities." [Reuters, 8/13/10]

Seizures Of Drugs, Weapons Along Border Have Increased. According to data reported by USA Today, "[w]eapons seizures rose 28% and illicit-currency seizures were up 35% in fiscal 2009 and 2010." [USA Today, 2/9/11]

Deportations Have Increased Under Obama. According to data from
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), nearly 100,000 more
people were deported by ICE in both 2009 and 2010 than in 2007. [U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, accessed 2/14/11]

Deportations Of Convicted Criminals Are At Their Highest Levels. According to AZ Fact Check -- a project of The Arizona Republic,
AZCentral.com, 12 News, and Arizona State University -- "ICE has
removal numbers immediately available for only the past 10 fiscal years,
and according to those figures, the most convicted criminals were
indeed removed in fiscal 2010." [AZ Fact Check, 2/9/11]

Illegal Immigration Fell In FY 2010 Due To "Economic Distress" And "Changes In The Level Of Immigration Enforcement." In
a study on the national and state trends of the unauthorized immigrant
population in the United States, Pew Hispanic Center found that
"economic distress" and "changes in the level of immigration
enforcement" led to a decrease in the number of undocumented immigrants
crossing into the United States. From [Pew Hispanic Center, 2/1/11]